2011年12月6日火曜日

Best and Worst Aspects of the Internet

I'm going to discuss about the best and worst aspects of the Internet. The Internet connects you to the global audience. Also it has made things more convenient. Clearly the Internet has brought us a lot of benefits. We depend on it so much that we cannot live without it today. However, at the same time it has brought a lot of problems, too. In my opinion, the best two aspects of the Internet are the ability to connect people global wide and its convenience. In contrast, its worst two aspects are privacy issue and the danger of malware.

Firstly, I'll talk about the best aspects of the Internet. The Internetconnects you to the global audience. A good example of this is SNS such as Facebook. Facebook enables you to stay keep in touch with people and make new friends from all over the world. You can see its popularity from its growing number of users. According to Wikipedia, it has more than 800 million users on globe (July 2011). Also, Facebook is not only for individuals but also for organizations and companies. According to this article "Why Facebook matters", Facebook plays a big role in maintaining social relationships, as it is referred as "utility":

"Zuckerberg thinks of Facebook as what he calls a "utility." More than 60
percent of members return at least daily, to see what friends are doing, check
messages, send messages to others or to amplify their own profiles."

Now, Facebook is really important to everyone. Not only individuals use it to communicate with friends but companies and organizations also use it for their promotion. The Internet has become the vital communication tool today.

Second best aspect of the Internet is its convenience. You can do almost anything online and there are a lot of useful services. People use the Internet for daily bases like ordering take out for today's lunch, and for special occasions like planning and booking holidays.Shopping online is a great help for Christmas as shopping season is just around the corner. There are some sites that allows you to compare prices thus saving your time and energy as well as money. Also, in other areas the Internet makes things very convenient and efficient by many useful services

Education: there are range of education available online from college degree to free online course online like ds106 that we actually used in this class. This opens up students for many options and learning style. In Japan, learning languages online is pretty popular.

Although the Internet has many advantages, it also has disadvantages. They are privacy issue and malware. I’ll talk about privacy issue first. Because the Internet connects you to the global audience, it also connects you to dangers online. For example, SNS like Facebook are treasure trove for hackers and ID thieves. People often share their photo or personal information with public without thinking carefully. Therefore there is much personal information online as this article points out. Because of its nature of social sites, there is little wonder why SNS like Facebook has a lot of privacy issues. In this article, it explains that:

Face it--"Facebook privacy" is an oxymoron. It is a social network. The name
alone implies a network of connected individuals who are social with one
another. Asking a social network to concern itself with privacy is like asking a
rock concert to try not to be so loud, or asking a swimming pool to not be so
wet.

Hackers and ID thieves exploit this advantage.When we are online, our privacy is at risk and it is very difficult to combat this issue since hackers’ knowledge and skills continue to develop as good technology improves.

To sum up, the Internet is great and still worse. It all depends on how you use it. The Internet opens up you to a global conversation. Also thanks to the Internet, everything has became more convenient that now we can shop, book online and even earn college degree. However, the Internet contains dangerous aspects as well. They are privacy and malware malware is very difficult. Although its best and worse aspects of the Internet seem controversial, if you have proper knowledge and equipped to use it, the Internet gives you a lot of benefits and possibilities. The bottom line is that it totally depends on how you use it. Whether you spend time looking useful and trustworthy information and using it properly, or you waste your time reading junk information and downloading suspicious software.